The Final 24 Hours of Dr. Leon Brophy

Illustration by Amjad Faur


Since the release of the Lightbulb Detective Agency CD A Useful Potato, We have received HUNDREDS of e-mails with questions about the song, the Final 24 Hours of Dr. Leon Brophy. Questions like “who is this Dr. Leon Brophy? What happened in his final 24 hours? Why the heck is this song 27 minutes long?” The “official” history of the song is available elsewhere on this blog as well as in the liner notes of the CD, but we have to be honest with you, that’s not the real story.

In the summer of 2001, Dr.Leon Brophy vanished. As one of the leading researches in the field of time travel, Dr. Brophy needs little introduction to those who research time travel. Everyone else however, will have no idea who this guy is. Dr. Brophy is considered a loose cannon by the few that know him. Many regard his methods as too unorthodox, and most consider it complete hogwash. His extremely reclusive nature is infamous, or at least it would be if anyone had ever heard of him.

Leon went to great lengths to insure that his research was kept as secret as possible. It is rumored that his entire support staff was made up of trained orangutans’ that only responded to commands in a language of Brophy’s invention. Because of his secrecy and the fact that all of his records seem to have vanished with him, we do not know the exact nature of Dr. Brophys work. We do however know that it in some way relates to memory.

Unlike “traditional” methods of time travel (such as mechanical or through powerful sorcery) Dr. Brophy felt it was possible to pull oneself out of time using nothing other than your own mind. It is unclear exactly how this works but, it apparently involves deep concentration on an event of the past or a somehow acquired “memory” of the future. No Proof exists that he ever perfected this method.

Only one piece of unexplained physical evidence was found in Dr. Brophys laboratory, where it is known he spent the days leading up to his disappearance. It seems that Leon had hooked himself up to a Brainwave scan device for a period of 24 hours. The lengthy print out hard copy of this scan was found spooled onto the floor and still attached to the machine. On a hunch Investigators fed this information into a powerful “ULTRA –BRAIN” computer. It was then discovered that the scan translated into a 27-minute audio waveform.

This waveform is of course, the song The Final 24 Hours of Dr. Leon Brophy as it appears on the A Useful Potato CD. When the CD was released, we at Lightbulb Detective Agency felt that general public wouldn’t accept the bizarre origins of this recording. So, a story about creating the song in a 24 hour time span was fabricated and released as the “official” story. However, we feel that you dear reader deserve to know the truth.

Even though the disappearance of Dr. Leon Brophy remains unexplained, we at Lightbulb Detective Agency vow to not let the mystery fade. We will continue to investigate this and keep you informed as details emerge.

the tuesday question? 02-17-09

...and so we pose the question...

How long will it take a man disguised as Abe Lincoln to prepare enough Fajitas to feed a 100 person junior high marching band in the summer?

please leave your answers in the comments ......and please explain your answer....

good luck...

STORM THE CASTLE! on Aquarius Records!

Holy Macaroni!

Aquarius Records has been kind enough to sell the STC! CD The History of Doomed Expeditions Vol.1 on their website!

They even gave it a great review!

Check it out Here!

http://www.aquariusrecords.org/

AND BUY LOTS OF COPIES!!!

Groundhog's day?

Just in case you live in a cave and eat albino fish for dinner, Groundhog’s day is that weird holiday in February with the groundhog and his shadow supposedly predicting the weather. As a child, Groundhog’s day is just some lame holiday you don’t get presents or a day off from school for. As you grow older groundhog’s day is pretty much the same except you are able to talk about the weather for an extra 20 seconds. Talking about the weather seems to become more important as you grow older. Even though Groundhog’s day, the Bill Murry film is universally recognized as the ultimate date movie, Groundhog’s day is a tame and largely insignificant holiday that most people never, ever think twice about.

But was it always this way?

If you look up the origin of Groundhogs day on Wikipedia, it will probably give you some completely plausible and sensible explanation that any person in their right mind will be satisfied with. But we here at Lightbulb Detective Agency say “HOGWASH! …UTTER HOGWASH!” Read on brave reader…if the taste of truth does not burn your tongue!

In the 14th century, one hundred years before the Sawney Beane Family’s reign of terror, a plague of bizarre mayhem gripped the western coast of Scotland. According to Wilber Hamsandwichson in his controversial book The Secret History of Scotland, “Graunhaugg’s Day” was not just a silly holiday; it was a day of terror. Hamsandwichson has uncovered a long hidden manuscript that reveals the story of the “Graunhaugg”, a monstrous beast that menaced small Scottish villages every February for at least 15 years.

According to the manuscript, the monster was described as being “shaped like a man but as tall as two and a half men and covered in unbreakable green scales”. Allegedly possessing unbelievable strength and speed, the beast would tear through homes, villagers and anything foolish enough to be in its way with razor sharp, sword length claws. Strangely the “Graunhaugg” was said to have no face but one gigantic blood shot eye covering most of its head. The beast was also accompanied by the inexplicable and intense smell of burning wood.

Very little else is known about the “Graunhaugg”, other than it would suddenly appear every early February and begin its seemingly random attacks on the villages. Mostly damaging the villager’s homes, the beast appeared to have no obvious motive. It would not steal anything, and it never ate any of its victims or took any hostages. In fact the only people who were killed by the monster were those who attempted to attack it. The would be attackers were reportedly dispatched with blinding speed and brutality. One example tells of the beast reducing a group of 12 warriors to bloody sludge in a matter of seconds. Hamsandwichson theorizes the “Graunhaugg” was searching for something in those villages but what that could possibly be is anyone’s guess. Then after several hours of savage destruction the “Graunhaugg” would vanish as suddenly as it had appeared. No sign of the beast was seen again until its dreaded arrival the next year.

It is estimated that these fearful February attacks lasted for slightly less than two decades. Then for no apparent reason the beast vanished for good. Did the creature die? Did it find what was looking for? What was it looking for anyway? Why was the history of the beast hidden for so long? Why did the Villagers name the beast the “Graunhaugg”? What the heck kind of monster has a giant eyeball for a head? When did “Graunhaugg’s day” become “Groundhog’s day”? And more importantly, why did a yearly time of menacing mayhem become a quaint holiday about the weather? Wilbur Hamsandwichson Claimed he would answer all of these questions in his unfinished book The Secret History of Groundhog’s day but he vanished along with all of his notes early last February. His last known location was the western coast of Scotland.

Tis the season...

These are the best Snow Globes we have ever seen. Yes, we are aware of the absurdity of the previous sentence. Just look and see.

A Useful Potato

REJOICE dear reader!

Lightbulb Detective Agency has released its’ second collection of musical experiments! Distributed in the Compact Disc format, this compilation of bold musical statements has been cleverly titled “A Useful Potato”. Finally the legendary pieces The final 24 hours of Dr. Leon Brophy and Bait and Switch will see the light of day. Surely these recordings will cause you to ask the question “what the heck were these guys thinking?”

Well, you are in luck! We will tell you exactly what we were thinking!

From the Liner notes of A Useful Potato:

“The music for The final 24 hours of Dr. Leon Brophy was written over the course of several recording sessions. The total length of time spent in these sessions was 24 hours. No musical ideas were discussed or created outside of these sessions.

The entirety of bait and switch was recorded in one day at the Listen Laboratory in Fayetteville AR by Dwight Chalmers. All of the music was improvised with no prior discussion or preparation except for tempo and general texture. The recording was conducted in three sections that were later edited together to make one continuous piece. One section contains overlapping improvisations, where the musicians where overdubbing on a previous performance.”

There, that was easy right? Think of how smug you’ll feel going out into the world knowing that you “get it” and that everyone else doesn’t! You can hold your head high because you’ve got the “inside scoop” on what will be regarded as a musical milestone by future generations!

Interrogation: Dax Delap

Dax Delap has been a longtime friend and co-conspirator with us here at Lightbulb Detective Agency. He needs no introduction to anyone that knows him. He is an excellent illustrator and has a unique vision as a storyteller. He did not pay us to say that. If you like stuff that is good, check out his work at http://www.daxdelap.com/. His blog I Am Biggest is also very good and is updated quite often.

We recently conducted and interrogation with Dax about his upcoming projects and his work process. Most of this information has been fact checked and verified except one question and answer that we made up. It’s a complete lie. In fact he’ll probably sue us. We won’t tell you which one is bogus; you’ll just have to guess.



SO...Dax....Tell me a little about what you are working on now and how it will be differentfrom your previous work...

Right now I'm working on a comic I'm calling "The Big Black"...it's the kindof story I gravitate towards, in that the narrative is pretty dream-like. Ina lot of ways it's similar to the woodcut novels of guys like Lynd Ward andFranz Masereel. But as to how it's different...probably mostly in the manner I'm going about doing it. I know the framework of the story from beginningto end, which is new for me. I usually start a story not knowing exactly howit's going to end, or maybe I'll have an ending in mind, but no idea how toget there. This time the only surprises are in little details like pacingand page layout, which I work out on the spot.

So, were you actively trying to approach making a story from a differentway? Or did the framework just present itself to you as a whole?

No, what happened was that I had several months of a kind of block as far ashow the story was going to go, or even what kind of story I wanted it to be,and suddenly one day I realized that the idea of a beginning that I hadplanned could instead be used as a more interesting ending. Once that piecefit into place the whole thing came together in my head very quickly.
So, you seem to be more aware of your dreams than just about anyone I know, and you mentioned earlier that a lot of your work has a dreamlike quality.

Do you have any thoughts on the function of dreams? Why do you think you are drawn to that dreamlike quality?

I guess dreams are like seepage from the mind when you're asleep. The brain can't shut off, so what we get are stories or scenarios that are made up of strange bits of memory and things we've observed, thought about, are fooling ourselves into thinking we're *not* thinking about, and on and on. The unconscious seems to be a great dumping ground for all this stuff. So in some ways it comes out as a kind of unfiltered imagination. Comics are great for getting across dream imagery and that kind of skewed dream logic...say there's a guy in a business suit and then somehow an instant later he's wearing a prayer shawl or something, that sort of thing the mind does in dreams. On film there would probably have to be a cut to something else and then a cut back, but in comics there's a number of ways you could present that and still preserve what that feeling is like...that strange shifting or re-writing that happens in the periphery, when your mind loses focus on some detail or whatever. But you can alter the telling of a story in a comparable way, which dreams do a lot. That's what I really find interesting. It kind of moves beyond plot and into a kind of sensation.

Most of your work has no dialogue. Is this a way to keep from interjecting too much "plot"? Do you have any plans to do stuff that is more dialogue heavy?

I've had a story idea for years that, if I ever do it, would have to have dialogue, or at least captions. Because it takes place in a certain historical time and place...there would be too much information for me to convey, really, in that kind of story, so I'd have to use words there. But yeah, I tend to leave dialogue out mostly to keep things more intuitive. Plus, I don't like word balloons, just from a style point-of-view. I don't like arranging things around them.

The story idea I have has to do with the "truth" behind Hassan-i-Sabbah, the 11th century Ismali missionary leader...and basically how over time truth becomes subjective. But I'm not ready to do that story yet. It requires an awful lot of study, not just of Hassan but of that time period and culture...I would feel kind of irresponsible if I started it before I felt I was ready.

What inspired you to write the story about Hassan? Do you see it as being a larger work when finished?

Yeah, the Hassan idea would end up being a lot longer than anything I've done thus far. With Hassan I just found it interesting that all of the West's info on him comes from Marco Polo, and what he heard was essentially hearsay shortly after the Mongols dismantled the Assassins sect that Hassan had formed about two hundred years earlier. Similarly, most of the West's knowledge of the Mongol Empire came from hearsay and propaganda--much of which was actually engineered by the Mongols themselves to make others fear them even more--and so that knowledge wasn't exactly true. Now, maybe there's some truth to what Marco Polo heard, but it's more likely that the truth and the myth have kind of intertwined by this point. So by now, in this case, 'truth' is an abstract notion. I find that really interesting.

Have you ever tried rhubarb pie?

Human scum! You vermin shall be wiped clean from this planet! Your extinction is at hand!

So I'd like to talk about your drawing habits a little...it seems like from your blog and the zines and stuff I've seen that you still draw quite a bit "for fun"...it seems like you’re pretty good about keeping busy in your sketch books with stuff that isn't strictly related to your comics...How often do you draw and how often do you set out to work on drawings that will specifically end up in a comic?

I'd say about 70% of my sketchbook stuff isn't related to my comics. For instance, sometimes I just want to try and draw a horse for fun. Or a Japanese ghost or something. It's nice to keep loose that way. But if I work on something intended for a comic story in my sketchbook, it's usually something I've already visualized in my head to some degree, and I'm just working out some rough sketches that I can refer back to when I draw the actual comic page.

As far as how often I draw...not often enough would be the most truthful answer. I try to draw in my sketchbook every day, at least a little.

Have you ever drawn something in your sketch book for fun and then decided to turn it into a "real" comic?

Yes. In fact, I'm going to be working on a very short thing that all unfolded from a drawing I did in my sketchbook several years ago. I saw it recently and everything else just kind of clicked into place around it.

Since it's so short, right now I think I might split it in half and use it to bookend the Big Black story. Maybe. There's a shared theme in both stories. Kind of. The name of the story is "Through Endless Celestial Sex".

I've always liked your watercolor work, and I'm very fond of all the other "non-comic" type stuff you have done. Are you ever tempted to do a non-sequential art gallery type show? If you were to do a show like that, what would you do?

Ahh, I don't know, really...you know, I'm a ridiculously shy guy, so the idea of having some sort of show where people stare at my stuff on walls kind of freaks me out. I always hated showing my work in college classes for the same reason. I guess as long as I didn't have to be there it would be okay. But I'm not sure if I could come up with a specific theme for such a show...it would be a bit of everything, I guess.

Do you find the format of a zine/mini-comic restrictive? Or a better question would be if you could have your stories printed in any format would you still opt for the "half page" zine style format? What about color?

It depends. By now I've gotten pretty used to the format...my ideal size would probably be something slightly larger, or even just longer, like legal paper folded in half looks like a good size for my art. But I definitely wouldn't want to go much bigger than that.I'm not really interested in producing a story in full color, but I wouldn't mind doing something like adding grayscale, or a one-color process maybe, depending on the project. It's something I would probably need to do on the computer. I like using watercolor, but that's a hard thing to capture in print...it would drive me crazy, and most likely end up looking horrible. But anyways, a lot of my graphic "style" is dependent on stark black-and-white. And, it's cheap.

Speaking of materials, what types of drawing materials do you use and why?

Well, the only specific brand of drawing materials that I'm wedded to are vellum Bristol board for drawing on, and Pigma Micron pens for line work. If I have those, a pencil, good eraser, black markers, and a ruler then I'm set.

Can you outline the physical process you go throughto make your comics?

I pencil each page in order, from panel to panel. By "penciling" I mean akind of combination of layout, sketching, and then somewhat more finishedpencils. I don't do much preliminary work...some thumbnail sketches for certain panels, mainly to figure out how I want the composition to be. Sometimes I'll do a rough sketch of a whole page, if I think I need to.Inking is a bit more loose...I usually don't ink panels in direct sequentialorder, though I generally stick to the same page when I'm inking. There'snot much reason behind any of this, it's just how I've settled into things.I do redraw things sometimes, though, so for that I just cut out the new panel and place it over the old one. When I'm finished with a page I scan itand clean it up on the computer--usually that's just a case of erasinglittle marks and stuff. Then I print out the pages and make a master copy, and then from that I make a bunch of copies at Kinkos, usually.

Can you talk a little about woodcut novels? How you discovered them and howthey have influenced your work? Would you ever consider doing a woodcut?

I had this big illustrated book of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein when I was akid, and the black-and-white illustrations inside were by Lynd Ward. I was always kind of fascinated with them, but it wasn't until I was in collegeand read an interview with Will Eisner that I realized who Lynd Ward really was and made the connection to my old Frankenstein book. Thanks to a friendI got a copy of Gods' Man, Ward's first book, and was blown away by it. Asfar as Masereel's work, I was dimly aware of it, but again it wasn't untilcollege that I really got exposed to it. I probably prefer Ward, but both are wonderful.There are a couple reasons I gravitate towards their work...superficially I'm very attracted to the stark, sharp imagery. That style of expressionist illustration really floats my boat. But behind that, those books are very interesting from a storytelling point-of-view because there's no dialogue orcaptions used, so it's really raw visual storytelling. Also, to me it feelslike it invites more inclusion for the reader...you can project more onto those stories than you're actually shown. Being made up of mostly single-page "panels" probably helps in that way...though I'm not doing that with 'The Big Black'. Was going to at one point, but decided not to.

But the tone of those old woodcut novels is what I think I'm going for in my work, more and more. So, while I'm using the same feeling of those stories with what I'm workingon now, I've never very seriously thought of doing actual woodcuts...I guess because I would have to put in a lot of time and work getting barelycompetent with it. Making engravings seems to require a high degree of confidence, which I just don't have right now. Maybe one day.

Let's talk about the state of comics today...content...industry...the future of single issue comics.....the future of paper comics in general....the whole big messy mess...what do you think?

Well..."independent" comic’s publishers have tethered themselves to the book market pretty darn successfully...but it's true that pamphlet comics are declining. I can think of maybe a handful of Indy comic’s series I buy that still come out in pamphlet form. And they don't sell too well in today's comic retail market. I'm sure that has impacted minicomics as well, even though with online resources you would think it’s got to be easier to get that kind of product out there than ever before. Essentially, the Direct Market (the distribution and retail system for comics in North America) is slowly constricting, and indy pamphlet comics are kind of like the canary in the coal mine, the first to suffer. It seems like they started dropping off about six or seven years ago.As far as the mainstream (Marvel, DC, etc), they're catering to an aging fan base without really priming the pump at the bottom and getting young kids interested in their product. Video games are certainly cutting into the racket. Basically, companies need to put together interesting comics for younger readers. Comic book movies are doing well, but there's no indication that their success is spilling over into comic sales with any consistency.

I wish there were more pamphlet comics...I miss the days when I could buy an issue of Eightball or Jim on the stands. Even though I still wind up buying all of those stories in collections anyway. I'm just a sucker for the format. I actually have a recurring dream where I happen across a section of small pamphlet comics in a large chain bookstore...all these small-sized Gary Panter and Ron Rege minicomics and other strange ephemera.As far as the future of comics on paper, I think we're still a ways away from them becoming a minority. But I'm out of the loop on that side of things...like I said, I'm hooked on X number of pages folded and stapled.

And regarding content...it's still a good time for comics. There's lots of great, amazing stuff out there if you know where to look. I may rant about the current state of the industry, but I still believe in the medium.